January202014

“European institutions should safeguard the right to free, independent and pluralistic information”. The quote, from the Media Initiative website, summarizes the main idea behind a pan-European campaign that aims at urging the European Commission to draft a Directive to protect Media Pluralism and Press Freedom.

The Media Initiative is running a European Citizens’ Initiative - a tool of participatory democracy “which allows civil society coalitions to collect online and offline one million signatures in at least 7 EU member states to present directly to the European Commission a proposal forming the base of an EU Directive, initiating a legislative process”. The petition is available in 15 languages and can be signed online:

Protecting media pluralism through partial harmonization of national rules on media ownership and transparency, conflicts of interest with political office and independence of media supervisory bodies.

January142014

Graffiti in Greek reads, “I don't hope for anything, I am not afraid of anything, I am unemployed,” a rephrasing of a famous quote by a Greek author. Photo by SpirosK photography via Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

At a time when unemployment has reached a staggering 27 percent in Greece, a hashtag on Twitter has helped about 30 people in the country find work.

#aggeliesergasias (jobadverts) was created by user @dimitrischrid in the beginning of October to help social media users share information about job opportunities in Greece and abroad. On December 11, the hashtag was a trending topic on Greek Twitter for 11 hours, thanks to its use by Twitter users and well-trafficked employment portals.

It has become a symbol of solidarity on the Internet against the increasing problem of unemployment in the country. Several Greek media outlets have referred to the initiative, characterizing it as simple, smart and effective. The blog Keep Talking Greece, dedicated to sharing the stories of “real” Greeks affected by the crisis, wrote:

Within a few days, the hell broke out: Twitter users started to post job offers they knew or heard about, while job seekers started to post their request. ReTweets and Favorites added quickly to the success of this modern, social media way to get to see a job offered in Athens or Xanthi, in London or Preveza, in Cete or in Geneva.

Up until now, and it is very early yet and many don't know about this way of searching for a job, around 30 people have sent me messages telling me that they have been hired and wanted to thank me for this. [...] Each one of us can make a hashtag, there is no way to get paid for its success, but the ethical reward I receive every day is worth all the money in the world.

A group of activists, artists, social scientists and students of various studies are working to map the urban commons of Athens, Istanbul and Rio de Janeiro. Urban commons refer to non-private or institutional resources which are shared by all and generated as a result of collective participation. The “commons” include natural resources, urban public spaces, creative works and even cultural traditions and knowledge which are exempt from copyrights.

The project Mapping the Commons is part of a survey carried out by Pablo de Soto (@pablodesoto), a doctorate student of the Communication School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The hypothesis raised by de Soto is whether it is possible to map out the commons through collective creativity as a form of debating the control governments have over society's commons:

Which is the commonwealth of the contemporary metropolis and how can it be located? How are the commons being protected from enclosure by totalitarian neoliberalism’s public-private enterprises? Which new practices of commoning are emerging in the cycle of struggles that began in 2010-11? What are the advantages and the risks of such a cartography in times of crisis and rebellions?

In practice, the research method proposed by the project is based on nomadic and temporary workshops where the urban commons are discussed, parametrized, charted and represented in short videos.

Mapping Rio's commons

In October 2013, the researcher brought [es] the project to Rio de Janeiro, thus starting the mapping of the “practices of common doing” in Brazil, as explained [pt] in the Portuguese language page of Rio's project:

Brazil, as the whole of Latin America, is a special country regarding practices of the commons. The “common” derives from the Iberian traditions (faixanais, rossios, communal properties), from the African culture (quilombos, collective cultural creation, joint properties) and from the indigenous cultures (collective property, malokas). From the mutirão (crowdsourcing) to the concept of “community” which replaces the word “favela” (slum), Brazil is a storehouse of common practices. However, both the market and capitalism are punishing the common without mercy.

Taking on the concept of “rebellious cities”, coined by social theorist David Harvey, de Soto adds that recent protests in Rio de Janeiro – “the demonstrations, the popular assemblies, the urban interventions” – point to a new demand for the right to the city, “a new common and participative space of coexistence”. He also explained to the English-language audience of the website that:

Rio de Janeiro, a city branded as “the marvellous city” has probably one of the most exuberant assets for natural and cultural commons in world. Those commons are disputed in a metropolis of enormous inequality and historically under state of exception.

Present days where the city is going to host mega events as the World Cup and the Olympic Games, where conflicts of housing evictions flourish in many areas, where protests that began last June have pointed to the mobility as a common and the right to the city, have opened an excellent opportunity for a political discussion on the urban commons.

#MapeandoOComum (#MappingTheCommons). A mapping workshop on “The struggle for the shared commons” took place in Rio de Janeiro from November 21-23.

Before being introduced in Brazil, the Mapping the Commons research project had already been discussed in workshops in Athens (2010) and in Istanbul (2012). The videos which resulted from these workshops were also presented in Rio.

The rescue of Gezi Park, for instance, and the popular turmoil which took hold in the central area of Beyoglu, Istanbul in 2013, when the population camped on site against the demolition of the park as part of a urban renewal project, were the subject of the research.

The video below shows how the rescue of the commons in Istanbul turned into political strife after the police reacted with brutality against the demonstrators:

The video produced in the Greek capital, Athens, focuses on language issues, taking as a starting point the literature by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt in their book Commonwealth:

Language like affects and gestures, is for the most part common, and indeed if language were made either private or public — that is, if large portions of our words, phrases, or parts of speech were subject to private ownership or public authority — then language would lose its powers of expression, creativity, and communication.

A philosophical elucidation about the commons, as suggested [pt] by de Soto on the project's Facebook page, can be found on Iohannes Maurus's blog [es], which links the theme with Marx's perspective.

November102013

In November 2013, Croatia and Greece joined the growing list of national football teams that FIFA has fined for racist behavior of their fans or team members. In Maqy of 2013, FIFA began implementing stricter sanctions aganist racismand discrimination. FIFA President Sepp Blatter stated recentky that this global governing organization must introduce harsher punishments to battle these issues, adding that FIFA was now even willing to “eliminate teams from a competition or deduct points” to that effect. Al Jazeera reports more details regarding the fines issued to the Croatian and Greek national football associations:

FIFA fined the Croatia Football Federation 35,000 Swiss francs ($38,000) for incidents during its 2-1 loss against Belgium in Zagreb on October 11.

“Croatian supporters made far-right salutes which were used during World War II by the fascist Ustase movement,” fan monitoring group Fare reported to FIFA.

October012013

“We made this video to tell you we are with us. We had nothing more in mind.”

A moving video with testimonials of anti-fascist solidarity from Turkish activists in the memory of Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas, slain by neonazis in Athens last month, was uploaded on YouTube, subtitled in Greek. The video was set to a dirge written by Turkish composer Zülfü Livaneli and Greek lyricist Lefteris Papadopoulos, and performed by famous Greek singer and political Maria Farandouri, an icon of the struggle against the Greek military junta in the late 60′s.

July132013

Europe's current crisis is more than economic. Between the German government advocating a dangerous austerity policy and European authorities lacking any other suggestions, it is clear that the 2008 financial crisis is no longer solely responsible for the downward spiral of Europe.

If it was only the 2008 economic crisis that was responsible for all this, Europe would not be one of the only one to suffer so much. For example, the United States, the birthplace of this crisis, registered a 1.9 percent increase in their economy in 2013 [fr] while their unemployment rate was at its lowest in four years.

One of the main reasons for this current instability in Europe is the evident failure of the European policy authorities when their proposals seem more than enigmatic. Restricting interchange fees as proposed by Michel Barnier, the European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, is a perfect example of is a perfect example of the Commission taking measures that will not haveany concrete impact.

Capping interchange fees, bank charges paid by retailers when they make a card payment, would not only increase personal bank charges [fr], as the banks would want to recuperate the money lost by this cap, but the retailers profit margin will also increase, as they rarely lower their prices just because their costs have decreased.

The other significant issue which has notably accelerated the decline of Europe is the restricted austerity policy which the majority of EU countries have undertaken. It would be more logical for Europe to take inspiration from the countries that have pulled through, i.e. the United States, in order to stimulate the market rather than only focusing on reducing the deficit.

The most frustrating aspect about this issue is that the majority of the European leaders agree on this point, but no one dares to confront the life-long defenders of austerity, also know as « Sparkurs » [de] in Germany and its strict chancellor, Angela Merkel [fr]. But there are also critics of austerity on the German side. Last week, Gilles Moëc, head economist at Deutsche Bank, admitted to the news outlet Agence France-Presse that “there were some errors” [fr] in the selected strategy.

Julio Salazar Moreno, Secretary-General of Spanish worker's trade union USO, believes that the countries within the European Union need to stop with the austerity policy [pt], according to online newspaper Público:

Imposed primarily by the German government, salary and retirement cuts, redundancies and privatisations, are not only going to push Greece into a major recession and cause social problems, but its also going to make loan repayments equally impossible.

Emigration figures for Europe are also far from surprising. In two years, 2.5 percent of the Portuguese population left the country. Who would have said ten years ago that today many Europeans would leave the continent to work in countries like Angola or Brazil?

July112013

Blogger alepouda remixed footage from a 2007 Greek tourism campaign promoting the “true Greek experience” with a video of police aggression against protesters at a rally on 10 July, 2013 in Thisseio in support of anarchist Kostas Sakkas, accused of terrorism and detained without trial since December 2010, who is in the terminal stages of a hunger strike.(more…)

The horrific show of violence on April 17, 2013 sparked uproar throughout Greece, prompting netizens to launch a boycott of the “blood” strawberries that originate at the scene of the crime.

Following national and international outcry, Greek police arrested three suspects in connection with the shooting, and charged them with attempted murder on April 19, 2013. The country's citizen protection minister promised that none of the victims would be deported from Greece, and the ministry announced that it is considering granting them residency permits on humanitarian grounds.

This grainy mobile phone video, posted on YouTube by Kathimerini journalist Kostas Onisenko, shows the injured migrant workers laying on the ground a few minutes after they were shot:

Racism and ethnic nationalism on the rise in the economically devastated country, with extremists, such as the neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” party, thriving on racist rhetoric, systematic violations of human rights, and the ill-treatment of immigrants.

Just three days before the Manolada incident, Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Dendias, as well as Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, were criticized in a report issued by the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights for rhetoric stigmatising migrant. Dedalos (@dedalos_gl) commented on Twitter:

Initially, mainstream TV channels barely — if at all — mentioned events in Manolada. It was Twitter users from Greece and those responding from abroad that drew public attention to the incident, as Craig Wherlock (@teacherdude) pointed out:

@teacherdude: Greek TV news shamed into covering #Manolada shooting. This afternoon, it was 6th item on NET and not reported at all on Star. See my TL

As news of the shooting spread, Twitter erupted in shock and outrage. User @MavriMelani shared a photograph of the wounded workers:

Although the severity of the incident is unprecedented, it's not isolated. Efforts have been made in the past to draw the attention of authorities to this form of modern slavery, such as a 2008 investigative report by journalists Dina Daskalopoulou and Makis Nodaros for which an English translation is available here.

There have been similar incidents before in the same area, with scant coverage in mainstream media, as the writer and activist collective The Multicultural Politic wrote:

[...] Activists from Greek Communist Party [initiated] a campaign in 2008 for a daily wage increase from 22 Euros to 25. The workers and campaigners were met with a violent confrontation in which many workers were beaten suffering serious injury. [..] Further investigations by journalists revealed how local municipal officials were selling fake documentation to migrant workers, and police prosecutions meant that employers in the town became very hostile to “Athenian” journalists which might partly explain the limited information that has been reported about the most recent violence.

In August 2012, an Egyptian worker was dragged with a car through the streets of Nea Manolada town, but the incident didn't trigger a closer look at the working and living conditions of farm workers in the area by authorities. One of three foremen awaiting trial for the latest shooting was the suspected perpetrator of the car dragging.

Journalist Yannis Baboulias explained the reasons for the continuing impunity:

The farmers of Manolada, praised many a times for their entrepreneurial spirit from government and media alike, have enjoyed this impunity for years. Nodaros’ report speaks of shacks in which the workers are forced to live and pay rent for to their bosses, illegal supermarkets among them selling expired products at two and three times their price, and a shocking tolerance from the authorities who have done nothing to stop this despite the 150 plus cases on file against them.

@Cyberela: In conclusion it seems that #Greece‘s officials knew about the conditions & celebrated @ European forums the “red gold” innovation #Manolada

April212013

Stories of despair were transmitted through Twitter, when politicians, journalists and anti-racism activists visited a detention facility within the Drapetsona police station in Piraeus city, where more than 100 unauthorized migrants are living in cramped, dark and deplorable conditions.

One detainee said he hadn't seen the sun for months. Another had attempted suicide.

I was part of the group that visited the detention facility outside capital city Athens on April 6, 2013. In this post, I describe the conditions of the migrants through my tweets and include testimonies from other people who also visited the facility or #GreekGuantanamo, as it was referred to on Twitter.

For the second time in two months, a delegation visited this particular police station to record the conditions under which unauthorized migrants that fail to meet Greece's legal living requirements are forced to endure.

Most members of the visiting delegation were motivated by a detailed letter [el] from George Karystinos, a member of the Antifascist Front of Piraeus, who was a part of the first delegation that visited the police station and witnessed the conditions there. What he described was utterly shocking. About 100 migrants were detained in a 70 meter-square space, some of them for more than 9 months.

Some migrants were on hunger strike after a fellow 28-year-old Palestinian detainee, had tried to commit suicide because of the conditions there, and they were allegedly beaten by police officers to end their strike.

During the first visit, one of the detainees started injuring himself in front of the committee as a way to show his despair. George Karystinos writes [el]:

The police department commander announced that the detainee who injured himself, as well as the Palestinian who had tried to commit suicide, would be set free. What was his message? You will have to attempt suicide in order to be released, and if you get lucky, you'll survive in a hospital.

Recent photo from the Drapetsona precinct detention. No windows, no outdoors. Photo posted by @eleniamorgos on Twitter

Our visit coincided with a protest outside the facility. Twitter users present at the protest reported the extensive presence of police forces outside the police station [el]:

I was also outside the police station, about to enter as a member of the committee, and tried to report what was happening on Twitter through my account @WonderMaS:

@WonderMaS: Outside the police station of Drapetsona with the Antifascist Front of Piraeus, Amnesty International, and two members of Parliament, Dritsas and Lafazanis who are just coming out of the police station.

After MP Dritsas, of the Syriza party negotiated the number of people that would be allowed inside, with the precinct commander, we entered and I tweeted:

@WonderMaS: Just came out of police station in Drapetsona, Pireaus. Immigrants there living like animals, eating twice a day, first meal at 16.00 #rbnews

@eleniamorgos: They are not provided with any medical care when they get sick or when they go on hunger strike

The precinct chief also made clear that they are trying their best to improve holding conditions, with little or no help from the Ministry. Teseris told us that he has to bring medicine from home to cover the department's deficiencies.

@WonderMaS: commander of police dept, Teseris says this isnt a proper place to detain ppl for months, only for 2-3 days detentions #rbnews

Some of the detainees told me there are no proper health facilities, and sometimes they don't have soap. Others told me that not all police officers are civil to them, even though they don't beat them. Most of them don't have any lawyers or contacts outside, and the ones that do have legal help, told me there hasn't been any progress in their situation.

The majority seemed desperate, and were looking at me as if I were their only hope.

As I tried to have a look inside their cells, I noticed some washing hanging from clotheslines. With all their inconvenient conditions, they still try to keep their prison proper, a fact which only reminded me that these people are coming from homes and families that taught them how to be civilized and cherish dignity. For some maybe their quest for dignity, brought them to these living conditions.

@Cyberela: [Syriza MP] Dritsas: the mobilization has helped their situation. These facilities are made for a 48 hour detention, at the most #greekGuantanamo

A few days after the visit, Mr. Dritsas announced [el] a parliamentary inquiry, demanding from the Citizen Protection Minister to call off the “Xenios Zeus” program of immigrant sweeps, that clearly results in a series of human rights violations.